Swing Bridge

Haulover Creek is a distributary of the Belize River, and Wikipedia says it got its name from cattlemen who hauled cattle across with ropes. It is one of three main waterways through the city, along with the Burdon and Collet canals. Before the present bridge, locals crossed on wooden bridges. Wikipedia mentions several built in the mid-19th century and a caption for an original bridge of 1859, while other sources describe a first wooden bridge about 1818 with replacements in 1859 and 1897. Dates for the earlier crossings vary and are not settled here.

The present steel bridge was built in Liverpool, England, and brought to Belize City by a company from New Orleans. Wikipedia gives its construction as 1922 and installation as 1923, and the newspaper Amandala gives 11 April 1923 as the date it opened to the public. A local historian quoted in one source says it was first known as the Grand Belize Bridge and that the Jefferson Company of New Orleans installed it, though other accounts credit that company with building it, so the attribution is not settled.

The bridge was designed to swing open so that tall-masted fishing boats could pass upriver and supply the city. At least four men turn it by hand with a crank to open it perpendicular to the creek, then crank it back. It originally swung twice a day, in the morning and evening, and road traffic was halted for more than an hour each time it opened. Wikipedia and Amandala say that since 2007 it has opened only on special request because creek traffic has declined.

Hurricanes have tested the structure. Wikipedia lists damage from the Category 5 hurricane of 1931, which reportedly pushed it into the street, Hurricane Hattie in 1961 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998, with repairs after Mitch and further restoration in the 2000s. One source reports that during repairs after Hattie a temporary pontoon bridge capsized in 1962 and dropped more than a dozen people into the creek, an account from a single source.

Proposals to automate the bridge met local resistance, since residents see manual operation as part of its character and as a tourist attraction. Wikipedia also records that China approved a donation of a modern replacement in 1987, which was shipped in 1989 but never arrived and was returned after Belize established diplomatic relations with Taiwan that year. The bridge appears in the 1980 film The Dogs of War, starring Christopher Walken, in which scenes set in the fictional African country of Zangaro were filmed in Belize City.

The bridge stands in the old centre of Belize City, near Market Square and North Front Street. The city was founded as Belize Town in 1638 by English wood cutters and served as the capital of British Honduras until 1970. The Maritime Museum of Belize is nearby, as are St. John's Cathedral and the Museum of Belize. A private guide can place the bridge in that context on a short city walk, with a private vehicle and driver for transfers.